I come away from this weekend with the deep knowledge that we are part of a special, unique, and strong community. Though we only had opportunities to talk with a handful of people (out of the three thousand or so who attended the conference), there was an overwhelming feeling of being surrounded by people who understood. People understood the developmental delays, the effort that therapy takes, the complete joy in each new tiny accomplishment. We were surrounded by people who've walked this road. During breaks it was fun to see the adults and teenagers with Down Syndrome talking and laughing with one another. During sessions, I loved watching the little babies whose parents are so new to this world--those little babies' eyes and noses and tongue, all beautiful in their own unique way. My Sunshine was a little baby like that.
Over the course of three days, Matt and I attended seminars on handwriting, phonics and reading, speech therapy related to feeding, communication development, math, exercise, gross motor skills, and technology all geared to the specific, unique needs of children with Down Syndrome. With that flood of information, we felt quite overwhelmed at times; however, we also came away from many sessions feeling encouraged that what we have been doing for Sunshine has been good and has been enough. (With the constant feeling that I should be doing more, that was quite encouraging!)
Some of the specific things we learned that we can put into practice:
- For handwriting development, starting with coloring, small hands need small tools. Children are able to color with more control and better finger grip when they have short, thin, crayons to work with. Sunshine has never liked to color very much, but when I handed her one of the presenter's sample crayons, she scribbled away!
- For a child with low tone and difficulty feeding, proper support from the feet up makes a difference. We'd always gone back and forth on how much Sunshine needed to wear her ankle braces while she's just sitting in her high chair, but if having her feet better supported with help her focus on the work eating takes, we can do that!
- Children with Down Syndrome are completely capable of being bilingual. We've been asking lots of Speech and Language Pathologists and other professionals about this for the past few months, and used the opportunity to ask more questions at the conference. We were encouraged to speak and read to Sunshine in Spanish now so it is a familiar when we get to Spain.
- The foot braces Sunshine wears will not change the looseness of her ligaments. What they will do though is provide her with adequate support and teach the correct placement and motion of walking so through repetition she will learn how her feet are supposed go and will one day be able to go without them.
- Something that is true about many developmental milestones is that it isn't about getting to the milestone faster; it is about building a strong foundation and mastery of each skill before moving on to the next one. Trying to achieve something before she's ready will only be frustrating to both of us. Walking would be an example of this. Sunshine is doing great and is close to being ready to walk, but we can continue to work with her balance and shifting weight from one foot to the other before she'll really be confident and ready to walk on her own. It is about breaking the goal down into each skill needed to accomplish it.
We were also overwhelmed by the number of resources available at the conference: books on every type of development, CDs, shoes, board books, DVDs, all of the "Talk tools" and "Handwriting without Tears" products, and all of the "Signing Time" DVDs. It was a challenge to sift through what we need now and what we would actually read and use. There is so much information out there and I don't have the physical time or emotional energy to read it all. One step at a time.
Over the weekend, we spent lots of time in the car driving to and from the seminar each day and that wore on our energy quite a bit. We were so thankful for friends to stay with and talk with in the evenings! We enjoyed watching the World Cup final (well, I slept through the first half, but everyone else enjoyed watching) on Sunday afternoon before driving home that evening. Buttercup was cheering for Germany because she wanted "white" to win, but the rest of us were hoping for Argentina to take the cup. We got home late last night and the girls slept in but Buttercup woke up excited to be home. Today is a day of rest and thankfully, everyone took naps this afternoon!
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